This was the game that had to happen.

With all due respect to the ACC’s other 10 teams, a third meeting between Clemson and North Carolina is the only fair way to conclude a season in which, were it not for a pair of stunning overtime losses to the Tar Heels, the vastly improved Tigers might be among the most celebrated teams in college basketball.

The top-ranked, top-seeded Tar Heels did their part to create a rematch, this time with the ACC title on the line, by rallying to catch a tough, determined Virginia Tech squad in Saturday’s first semifinals in the ACC Tournament.

If there was any doubt the Heels could take a punch, it was dispelled against the Hokies, who masterfully stifled the vaunted Carolina fast break and actually outscored Roy Williams’ squad in transition. Trailing for much of the contest, UNC came away with a 68-66 victory on a baseline jumper by All-American Tyler Hansbrough with 0.8 seconds to go.

The decisive shot left Hansbrough running upcourt, pumping his legs and flailing his fists. A short while later, addressing the media, Virginia Tech’s Seth Greenberg was reduced to tears. “We basically controlled the game for 39 minutes and 59 seconds,” the coach said, exaggerating only slightly. “We had the game exactly in the tempo we wanted.”

Earlier in the afternoon, the ACC’s so-called legends were introduced to the crowd, household names such as Glen Combs of Virginia Tech, Boston College’s Bill Curley, and Miami’s Tim James, none of whom ever played a lick in the conference. But  a number of familiar faces were also on hand, among them the coach with more victories and more ACC titles than anyone in history.

Dean Smith easily received the largest ovation, and his coaching philosophy came to mind as Williams, his former assistant at North Carolina, called timeout with 21 seconds to go in a tie ballgame. In similar circumstances Smith would not have halted play. He believed that, at this point in the season, having practiced late-game situations every day, his players should know what to do.

But these are different times, and Williams used two timeouts to set up a play on which Hansbrough would screen for Wayne Ellington, who already had made two crucial 3-pointers and a pair of free throws, and playmaker Ty Lawson would drive to the basket. Lawson would either penetrate and kick to Ellington, or attack the basket.

Lawson drove as the game clock ticked to single digits and launched a contested layup, which missed. The ball dribbled to the right of the basket along the baseline, two Hokies in close pursuit. Overtime beckoned.

Then, almost as if by the magnetic force of his considerable will, Hansbrough found the ball rolling directly to him. He grabbed it and put up a jumper that swished cleanly through the net, giving him 26 points for the game and the winning score. “I’m pretty glad it went in,” the junior opined in his best aw-shucks manner.

Clemson concluded its half of the deal by beating Duke 78-74 before a strangely quiet crowd at Bobcats Arena that was dominated by Tar Heel fans who seemed sated by the emotion of their team’s close escape.

The third-seed Tigers advanced to the championship game for only the second time in the ACC Tournament’s 55 years. Clemson is the only remaining original member of the conference without a title, and last played for the championship in 1962, losing to Wake Forest.

The Tigers routed Boston College in the quarterfinals, blitzing a squad pocked with freshmen by applying the unrelenting pressure preferred by coach Oliver Purnell.

“That’s who we are – we want to make people adjust to us,” Purnell said.

Clemson accorded Duke similar treatment, forcing more turnovers than assists (16 to 12) while holding the ACC’s most potent perimeter attack to 6 of 26 accuracy (23.1 percent) on 3-pointers. The Tigers had lost 22 straight times to the Blue Devils, second-seeded and seeking their 10th berth in the finals in 11 years.

“The cumulative effect of the press, particularly in a back-to-back game, has an effect on your legs and your shooting,” Purnell said. “We work at that. We want to be high energy. If we’re not high energy, we’re not who we are.”

Equally impressive, and improbable, the league’s worst free-throw shooting squad this year and in recent years made a respectable portion of its foul shots, making all but four of 17 in the second half. Senior James Mays, the worst active free-throw shooter in the ACC entering the season, made all six of his attempts in the second half as the Tigers held Duke at bay.

The championship game affords the Tigers a chance to apply the lessons supposedly learned in two bitter defeats at the hands of the Tar Heels.

North Carolina opened the season at Clemson, and triumphed on a 3-pointer by Ellington just before the buzzer in the first overtime. The shot largely erased memories of Ellington’s key late miss against Georgetown with a Final Four berth on the line in the 2007 NCAA tournament, instead burnishing the sophomore’s reputation for clutch shooting.

Then, on February 10, Clemson led from the opening basket against the Tar Heels, and appeared on the verge of ending a losing streak at Chapel Hill dating to the presidency of Calvin Coolidge. Instead, the Tigers, up 11 points in the final three minutes, saw their lead and their historic triumph vanish in double-overtime defeat.

UNC did not trail again for such an extended period until its semifinals game against Virginia Tech.

Both Clemson (24-8) and North Carolina (31-2) are deep, athletic, accomplished, confident and determined. Both have high aspirations, and are playing well. UNC has won 10 straight, Clemson 7 of its last 9. In the wake of a stirring pair of semifinals, it’s only fitting they go at it one more time for ACC supremacy in 2008.